East Africa Facing One of the Worst Droughts in Decades

The Mandera Region of East Africa which includes parts of Kenya, Somalia, and Ethiopia is facing one of the worst droughts to hit the area in decades.

“That’s the only dam we have … if it's dry, nothing we will drink,” one local told a news outlet.

Bodies of water that once sustained entire communities in the area have dried up and so have the wells dug to replace them.

Authorities have been using tankers to ferry water from far out of the areas to fill up the six wells serving the town of El Wak, Somalia. Even with that, officials say only three of the six wells are working.

That means there’s only enough water for 15,000 people, leaving 85% of that town’s population dry.

Mandera, Kenya, is home to around 1.2 million people and has not seen significant rainfall in the last six years. The latest three-month period where rains were expected, which go from October to December, brought no reprieve, nor did it add to any reserves.

With no solution in sight, authorities fear thousands of animals could perish and hundreds of thousands of people will be forced to abandon their homes.

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